Here’s How to Fix Your iPhone’s Goofy Autocorrect

Take, for example, my cat’s name: Leeloo. Despite typing the name on a semi-daily basis, somehow my phone still tries to autocorrect “Leeloo” to “lee loo.” Back in the days of iOS 6, my phone used to autocorrect any misspelling of gingercast to GINGERCAST. But since upgrading to iOS 7, that doesn’t even work anymore. Your favorite 6-second gingers-only Vine-cast usually insists on being the “gingrcqst.”

For months now I’ve been waiting patiently for autocorrect to re-learn the words I use regularly, with no luck. If you, like me, are fed up, then it’s time to take things into our own hands.

First, the cat name misspelling. You can teach autocorrect to learn the correct spelling of words or names you use frequently by adding them as a contact in your phone. In practice, this is hit or miss for me — it will remember the last names of contacts in my phone as I begin to type them, but autocorrect still tried to change “Leeloo” to “lee loo” a few times.

Another (more reliable) option is to go to Settings > General > Keyboard, then scroll down to Shortcuts and tap Add New Shortcut — yep, the same way you’d add an iOS keyboard shortcut. Except instead of adding a shortcut phrase, so “omw” autofills to “On my way!”, you can just type in a phrase or word that the phone should know: the name of your favorite restaurant, industry terminology you use for work, the names of your bicycles, anything you type regularly that tends to get mangled.

Turning off autocorrect completely is an option, too, if you’re fed up with the system entirely. But no matter how frustrated I get with autocorrect fails, it’s still far superior to no autocorrecting feature at all — at least in my experience.